2 Cab Firms End Boycott of Service to South Bay

Yellow Cab and Diamond Cab resumed service to the South Bay on Tuesday after a representative of the two companies met with Border Patrol officials to discuss the recent seizures of cabs.

Several cab companies in the county announced Monday that they would stop or limit their service to the South Bay after the Border Patrol seized three cabs over the weekend, contending that their drivers were carrying illegal aliens. The Border Patrol has impounded 15 cabs since Oct. 1.

Bill Hilton, a vice president of Yellow Cab and an officer of Diamond Cab, declined to give details of his morning meeting with Alan Eliason, chief agent in charge of the Border Patrol San Diego Sector, and with the second in command, Mike Williams.

“We are cooperating with the Border Patrol in trying to reach a long-term solution to the problem,” Hilton said. “Hopefully, they won’t seize anything until we can work something out. The people there need service very badly.”

He said his companies provide 75% of the cab service to the South Bay. He said he did not know how much money was lost during the regional boycott but said they normally receive about 400 calls a day from the South Bay.

Hilton said he had not discussed the return of his four cabs, confiscated earlier, with Eliason and Williams. He said another meeting had not been scheduled.

Border Patrol officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Red Cab owner Bill Hedrick said his 18 drivers still are being told not to pick up fares within a mile of Main Street in Chula Vista, an area where several cabs have been confiscated.

American Cab owner Jimmie Sober has told his drivers that he will increase their daily lease rate from $30 to $59 if they pick up fares in San Ysidro.

The cab drivers and owners charge that the Border Patrol is asking them to do something that violates anti-discrimination laws by screening riders for their citizenship. Border Patrol officials charge that cab drivers are knowingly transporting aliens, sometimes picking them up at arranged meeting places in remote areas near the border.

Cab drivers have approached the American Civil Liberties Union and the Chicano Federation, ACLU attorney Greg Marshall said.

“An agency of the federal government is putting a great deal of pressure on the cab companies to violate the law . . . . A lot of the cab drivers contend that as long as the fares appear Anglo, everything seems to be OK,” Marshall said.

The conflict between the cab companies and the Border Patrol came to a head after the Border Patrol stopped 12 cabs over the weekend, allegedly finding illegal aliens in 11 of them, and seized three cars.

Border Patrol spokesman Gene Smithburg said on Monday that cabs are confiscated only in cases where there is evidence that the driver could knowingly be transporting illegal aliens.

But Arthur Grieshammer, 58, one of three drivers whose cabs were confiscated over the weekend, said he had no idea he was driving someone who was in the country illegally.

Grieshammer, who said he recently moved to the San Diego area from Boston, said he had been driving a cab in San Diego only five days when he was pulled over by a sheriff’s deputy Friday night for picking up a fare outside of his jurisdiction.

“I was dispatched by the operator to a 7-Eleven . . . . I was not informed by my company that our cabs are not licensed to pick up in San Diego County,” Grieshammer said.

The passenger “spoke good English, was dressed neatly, asked how much it would cost to go to 47th and Market,” Grieshammer said.

While the sheriff’s deputy questioned Grieshammer, Border Patrol officers began to question his passenger, he said.

“Next thing I know, they came around to me, handcuffed me and said I was smuggling an illegal alien,” he said.

Grieshammer said Border Patrol agents kept him in custody at the San Diego Sector headquarters on Beyer Boulevard from about 10 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Saturday without allowing him to make a telephone call.

He said he was kept in a room without furniture and with “no toilet paper and no drinking water” and was there alone until two other cab drivers were detained with him.

“The guy who searched me took my Cross pen and never returned it, which really aggravates me,” Grieshammer said.

At 5 a.m., he said, he was released with the other drivers and told he was not charged with anything. The agents declined to return his cab driver’s license and gave him no paper work, he said.

“I was charged with nothing, treated rudely and sworn at . . . . They said, ‘There’s the street. Get going’ and told me to ‘go back and tell your friends what happened to you and that we mean business,’ ” Grieshammer said.

Grieshammer went to the Border Patrol station Tuesday to retrieve his license and was again told he was not charged with anything, he said. But he was told by an agent who handles administrative cases that the cab, which belongs to Yellow Cab, would continue to be held. Grieshammer said the Border Patrol could not find his license.

The agent declined to speak to a reporter but did say, “This is a case against the car.”

Hilton said that to his knowledge charges are not being brought against three of his four drivers whose cars were among those impounded earlier and that they “possibly” could be pressed against the fourth.

Hedrick said charges were not brought against the drivers of the two cars impounded earlier this year. He said he was told he could not have his cars back but could try to buy them when they are sold at a monthly federal auction.

“They said I’ve been down here (in San Ysidro) too long and should know what’s going on and screen my drivers more. I can’t follow 18 drivers around myself 24 hours a day,” Hedrick said.